Elf Teams

When the NAF collapsed, many Elven teams were left penniless. Those teams that have survived the fallout are not as rich as the High Elf teams nor as well equipped, but they sure know how to play the game. Sporting facemasks and mohawks, they take to the pitch to relive the glory days they once played in.

Overview:

Elf teams are the cheapest of the four elven races that are available to play. Their biggest feather in their cap is their Catchers. They are by far the best Catcher in the game, being fast, average strength and starting with Nerves Of Steel. Their ability to catch a ball in heavy traffic makes the team very hard to defend against. The Catchers are also really good at getting interceptions if you place them well and this can help force the other team to play the ball where you would prefer. They don’t suffer from the low strength that other players of their type have. The Blitzers are also good and have a nice starting combination of skills which make them great at harassing the opposing ball carrier.

The bad news is the Blitzers and Catchers aren’t cheap and will get targeted. Though their Linemen are the cheapest of all the Elf teams but they do have low armour, so you don’t want to get involved in a brawl. The fact that the Catchers are so good at what they do, you may find they tend to hog all the SPP and you have to be careful about spreading the skills around the team.

For beginners their low armour can prove to be difficult for defending against certain teams and there may be games where you have few players on the pitch. However the ease at which they can score may counteract that at times. They are probably on par with the high elves, a bit more fragile at the trade of a more explosive offence.

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8 Responses to Elf Teams

I’m four games in with an elf team and have yet to start with more than 11 players. If you can live with the frustration of high casualties, and high initial cost, then they give such high flexibility TDs can come from anywhere. Unfortunately due to the high cost of postion players I have ended up with a team of linemen. My team roster always has a couple of players missing next game and I never have enough match winnings to buy any replacements other than lineman. I think once I have another 2 or 3 games I should be over the worst of it and have enough players to have subs for every match.

I’ve found that by buying all the positionals as quickly as possible you can do quite amazingly well with only your eleven starting players every match. Journeymen elves are fantastic and even better you don’t care when they die! Focusing on your positionals and skilling them up as fast as possible…and then supporting the development of your linemen seems to be working out better for me.

I’ve had to restart my Elf team several times in the Cynaide league, as with AV 7 and no dodge yet, they’re really darn fragile! Even with conservative play where you protect your players, it seems you’ll walk away from each game with one to two casualities, which cost well more than the winnings of each match. A few games in, you’re looking at a few journeymen and/or fielding niggled players.

Of course, it gets better once they all get dodge and can consistently move around the field (and escape being marked), but those first few games are brutal!

I love my elf team. Especially for the fact that my level up rolling for catchers has been pretty heroic. I now have 2 catcher with a ST4 (one i’ve rolled skill increases for all 3 lvl ups..MA9, ST4 AG5..which in hindsight i should have used one of these as a skill but never mind) which makes them perfect for opening up gaps in the defence with blitz’s that they can then carry on running through.

It is true, that the all-journeyman elf team ain’t bad. I just played a 10 game leauge, and I embraced the positionals all being SPP hogs, and they ended up with all 2-4 skills each, and saved my apothocary for ONLY them. A star lineman would occasianaly make it into the cool kids club, and get a off- the line position and Apoth privilages. Your TV is deflated by the fact that you only have 6-7 players, and you can still play some mean ball with only an accurate, safe throw, strong arm star thrower, and a few Dump-Off, blodge, stat increased catchers. Use your inducements to freeboot an apoth every once in a while, pick up linemen with 3+ spps, and in the final game of the (admitedly short) season, I used my hoarded cash to fill up the roster. I think I shoulnt have, as it made my TV skyrocket, but eh.

Playing short of 11 players doesn’t deflate your TV much, as the base cost of journymen are added onto your team when counting inducements. All you really save is any extra cost from skills they might gain (skills your probably want!).

I see one primary advantage to relying upon Journeymen, and that’s simply that if they die on the line you don’t lose cash from your treasury. If you’re starved for cash it can be nice to hold off on buying lineelves until you get a MVP journeyman who survives a match (though then you can’t name them!).

Plus there is one major downside to having Journeymen — you’re stuck with 11 players! This is a huge drawback on an AV 7 team, as there is a solid chance you’ll be starting every kickoff but the first short players, which can easily lead to a downward spiral where even more (expensive!) elves get hurt.

it’s worth noting, especially for tabletop players, that pros *really* shine in many tourney setups; seems like so many tourneys I go to run “very limited bankroll + skill packages,” which hurts woodelves and makes darkelves unplayable often. In this environment, who cares if your players die? this team can pretty easily 2 turn score with only 5 or 6 elves on the field!